Milk Products and Kosher

Hi All:

I was hoping someone that was familar with Kosher Certification in their Plant could assit.

What are the Kosher regulations for having milk products. Would it be acceptable to have may contain milk on product and it still be kosher.

Thanks

Our facility (and product) contains milk (lactose) and we are Kosher. 

Do you have to provide that the milk is derived from a Kosher animal?

What is your product? If it is meat then it would not be kosher.

For other products the milk would have to be certified kosher as all raw materials must be and the product would be labelled as dairy.

Gail

IQC

Israel

As long as your ingredient is certified Kosher-D (demoniation changes slightly depending on the certification body)

your line will be fine for all product tht contain Dairy.

However if you want to make it pareve again you will have to talk to your rabbi.

I was the Quality Coordinator in a yogurt plant that was kosher.

The kosher requirements, as I understand them, is that all of your ingredients for the product have to be kosher or your certifying body has to inspect the supplier (which will cost you). 

All of the product you make on your kosher line has to be kosher or the rabbi has to visit before you can make kosher product again.

Just running one product that is not kosher removes your kosher certification on that line.  Using one ingredient that is not kosher will remove your kosher certification.

Also be sure that the kosher certification of your ingredient supplier is acceptable.  There is a large number of more "suspect" certifying bodies that more responsible certifying bodies may question.  Bodies like OU, Scroll K (KOF-K), Circle K (OK), Star K, etc are "good ones" I believe I've seen all of those.  That is not to say that other ones are bad but may be smaller less known ones and may be scrutinized more by inspectors.

As my Rabbi (the inspecting one I'm not Jewish)  said "Any Rabbi can open up shop out of his office and say something is kosher without actually inspecting the plant.".  He told me years ago there was like 20 kosher bodies now there are so many he will see ones he's never seen before (he's a pretty older gentleman).

Are you currently kosher at all?  If so ask your rabbi directly.  If not I highly suggest you ask direct questions of the CB you are planning on using.  And use one that is well recognized. 

If you have any ingredients in house that are not on your schedule B (I believe B is ingredients.  There is A and B one is your products one is your ingredients) he will start asking questions like have you used it? When?  He'll start looking at them for kosher symbols etc.

If you have to use something that is not on your schedule you need to notify them before you use it so they can verify the kosher status.  If any of your ingredients are kosher but they do not have the stamp on them they are NOT kosher (the certificates typically state that the item is kosher when the symbol is displayed) that happened to us once and the Rabbi wanted all of the product held.

I'm sure there are people who know more about it than me but I worked directly with the Rabbi on his visits.  My manager controlled the Schedule A and B directly I didn't work with those.